


Cat's Cradle

by BananasofThorns



Series: Arcanist's Lullabye [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Dissociation, Gen, Hands, I think? not sure, Neurodivergent Caleb Widogast, Platonic Relationships, Stream of Consciousness, after one of Caleb's bad days, and also, lots of focus on, probably a run-in with his past, set in a vague point in time, voices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:39:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25452523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BananasofThorns/pseuds/BananasofThorns
Summary: “Does anyone have a string?” He says. His voice is loud in the silence. The words taste clumsy on his tongue.The group shifts - a discordant, rustling motion. His shoulders tighten. His fingers curl, nails digging into his palm.“A string?” Veth asks. Her voice familiar, high and piercing.He nods. The words stick in his throat. He holds his hands up, the two-foot distance between them a gaping chasm.“Ja,” he manages. “About double this length. Just a string.”
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast, Fjord & Caleb Widogast, The Mighty Nein & Caleb Widogast
Series: Arcanist's Lullabye [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759177
Comments: 9
Kudos: 180





	Cat's Cradle

They walk back to the Xhorhaus in silence. Caleb knows he had gone through the motions of creating the teleportation circle, because here they are, but he remembers none of it, which is—

He remembers  _ everything. _

(This is, sometimes, a lie.)

He knows they are walking back to their house because that is where they go nearly every time they return to Rosohna. He is outside his body; he sees the things and people they pass, but it slides through his mind like water off of a duck’s back. If anyone says anything to him, he does not hear it.

Two hands - small and gentle and warm - curl around his own. He blinks, realizes vaguely that his forearms are hurting.

He looks down, belatedly, when the hands holding his squeeze.

“Caleb,” Nott -  _ Veth, _ she is Veth - murmurs. “You’re hurting yourself.”

He frowns, mouth opening in a silent, wordless ‘o.’ When he pulls his hands away, Veth lets him go. She’s still watching him, though, so he buries his hands into his pockets and keeps on moving. His fingers curl and uncurl, anxious energy vibrating through his veins.

He nearly walks into Yasha’s back when the group stops. She steadies him with a barely-there smile. Caleb blinks past her and watches Caduceus push the door to the Xhorhaus open. The chimes jingle; Caleb curls away from them with a wince. Yasha’s hand slides off of his shoulder. He follows the group inside.

They hover unsure in the foyer, frozen between the stairs and the library and the kitchen. They are watching him, Caleb realizes in a dull, detached part of his mind. His fingers flex in his pockets.

“Does anyone have a string?” He says. His voice is loud in the silence. The words taste clumsy on his tongue.

The group shifts - a discordant, rustling motion. His shoulders tighten. His fingers curl, nails digging into his palm.

“A string?” Veth asks. Her voice familiar, high and piercing.

He nods. The words stick in his throat. He holds his hands up, the two-foot distance between them a gaping chasm.

“Ja,” he manages. “About double this length. Just a string.”

Jester hums. “Would a ribbon work?” Her voice is saccharine-sweet bubbly.

He drops his hands to his sides. His fingers tap against his leg, stumbling over themselves in their nervous haste. He opens his mouth.

He says—

He nods.

“Okay!” Jester chirps. “I’ll be right back.” She disappears up the stairs. One moment, she is there; he blinks, and the next she is not.

A hand lands, gently, on Caleb’s shoulder. It is large and warm and soft. He jumps.

“You did very well today, Mister Caleb,” Caduceus says, low and rumbling. He sighs. “I’m going to make some tea.”

The hand leaves Caleb’s shoulder. Caleb catches a flash of pink and green around the kitchen doorway.

Jester appears in front of him. A thin, shimmering orange ribbon slices through his vision.

“Will this work, Caleb?”

His hands are shaking. The ribbon is smooth. He tangles it around his fingers and tucks his hands into his pockets.

Jester is still watching him; her smile drops, ever so slightly. He looks away before she can make eye contact.

“Ja, thank you.”

The words tear at his throat.

He steps around her. The library door closes with a dull thud; the lock slides into place with a soft click. Like a ghost, he drifts to the blanket-covered couch in the corner. It nearly swallows him when he sits.

He pulls the ribbon out of his pocket.

It is nearly too dark to see his hands. He flicks a single, dim globule of light into the air. It is orange. His fingers are shaking. It takes him three tries to knot the ends of the ribbon together.

He reaches a hand up to the globule and cradles it in his palm.

He closes his fist.

The darkness is, somehow, less suffocating than the light.

The ribbon is smooth and thin; its edges are soft. He loops it twice around his fingers, leaving the pinkies and thumbs free. The tips of his middle fingers catch on his callouses when he slides them beneath the loops and pulls the ribbon taut.

The feeling of it stretching between his fingers is grounding. He inhales slowly, exhales slower.

With his thumbs: under, over, under.

The easy, half-remembered movement of it stalls. His fingers stumble to find the gaps between the ribbon.

The pattern dissolves.

He tries again. 

(And again, and again.)

It becomes familiar after a while. (He should know the exact time.) The world narrows into darkness - it does not matter if his eyes are closed or open, and so he closes them - and the smooth slide of the ribbon against his skin.

He loses himself in the easy, repetitive motions.

This, at least, is not a memory that has been stolen from him by time or by—

By time.

The door opens. He flinches at the sound, then curls away from the blade of golden light that’s stabbed through the room.

“Caleb?” Someone - Fjord, but the accent is wrong (but it’s not, it’s no longer the secret it once was) - calls. A muttered curse. “Caleb!”

Caleb blinks. The piercing light, suddenly, is blocked out by Fjord’s body. His chest is painted in the gold and Caleb almost grins, at that, but his mouth can’t find the energy to move. Two hands, large and cool, curl around his own. The movement stops. Fjord hisses under his breath, barely audible, and the golden light dies until all that’s left is a faint sliver of it over Fjord’s shoulder.

Caleb frowns. Fjord’s hands don’t move. They are cold; Caleb doesn’t pull away. A small, keening sound rises unbidden from his chest when Fjord stands. The air is dry on his hands. He opens his fingers.

The ribbon crumbles to ash in his lap.

He flexes his empty fingers in the air. His mind is slow and stuttering in its attempt to trace the ribbon’s demise.

“Caleb?” Fjord’s voice is soft, curling in the quiet. “You good?”

Caleb flexes his fingers again. Fjord sighs.

“I’ll go find another ribbon. String? Don’t move.”

He does not close the door completely behind him; it taps against the doorframe, a soft click.

Caleb stares at the thin, golden strip of light creeping into the room. He slumps further into the couch. His fingers tap against his arms and thighs, near-frantic in their jitteriness. He curls his hand into a fist. It is a dull pain when he rubs his knuckles against the edges of his teeth.

He welcomes it.

The door opens again. He is not sure if he blinked, but he must have, because it has been minutes.

These footsteps are lighter.

A long, thin piece of cobalt-blue fabric drops into his lap. It is stained grey in the darkness. He picks it up. Its edges are frayed.

The ends are already knotted together.

He blinks at it. Loops it around his fingers.

“You good, man?”

Beauregard’s voice is low. It is less abrasive, like this.

He slides his fingers against his palms, beneath the string, and pulls.

Beauregard shifts. “You want me to stay?”

She is already turning to leave.

The pattern barely stutters; under-over-under, slip the fingers out.

He drops the pattern. Her wrist is bony in his hand. He tugs, lightly, and picks the string back up.

She sighs - fond, nearly - and settles into the blankets at his feet.

The pattern continues.

He closes his eyes.


End file.
